Thursday, July 25, 2013

My head buzzes with things, issues, important issues, that I want to write about;Routine surveillance of U.S. citizens by our government, Supreme Court decisions that have, in effect, granted immunity from civil liability to the pharmaceutical industry, guns and the pursuit of happiness set forth in the Declaration of Independence, corporations as “people” in the eyes of the Supreme Court, the questionable distinction between bribery and campaign contributions by the right wing branch of SCOTUS, the dismal state of affairs in Detroit, the dismal state of affairs in Detroit public schools, the craziness of Florida’s stand your ground law, my golf game, etc., etc.The buzzing central issue in these various topics (aside from my incompetent golf game) is the fearful knowledge our government and various factions within our society are wreaking havoc on the very foundation of our society.Our constitutional rights, using questionable and self-serving pretexts, are being sacrificed in the name of fake government security, entitlements of big business, racial politics and single issue zealots (think NRA and pro-lifers).

When I start to write on a topic, I like to think about the humor element; e.g. there is something inherently funny about an elderly male congressman implying publicly that a pregnancy induced as a result of an act of rape is not, in fact, a rape because the human body prevents it if, in fact, it is an actual rape.The topic started to become a lot less funny, however, when the pregnancy is viewed as “God’s will.”What I am trying to say is that my sense of humor about all of these issues is being sorely tested when, for example,people die daily (28,000 per year in Michigan) from prescription drugs and their families are left without a remedy to redress their grievances (despite the 7th Amendment to our U.S. Constitution which guarantees the right to civil trial by jury).

The seriousness of these issues is no laughing matter.

I write today because I know that by sending my various rants to you, I am taking up your time and, in a very real way, imposing my thought processes on you. I know that some of you disagree with most of what I have to say. Others are members of the choir, so to speak. My intent, however, is pure. It is to get all of us on the same page of at least thinking about these things, these things that matter so much to each of us.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

As I have oft-mentioned I play golf with a group
of guys who are Republicans. Don’t
get me wrong. I like
Republicans. Talking with them,
listening to what they have to say, gives me an opportunity to try to
understand how, what, and why they think as they do. After a round of golf yesterday, I sat and talked with George. To him, Obamacare is wrong
because it interferes with the natural operation of the marketplace. That was his response after I pointed
out that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has voted thirty
seven (maybe thirty eight) times to repeal Obamacare. It is not the role of government, they say, to
interfere with the natural process of things. Government should stay out of the business of trying to control
peoples’ lives because that is socialist thinking that has no place in the
democratic process. They vote to repeal Obamacare because it will distort the
natural operation of the markets.

However, Republican thinking says that there are
exceptions to this rule. One
exception is that government should involve itself intimately in the private sex
lives of women with regard to their pregnancies. Apparently, because women are too stupid to make decisions
involving their own lives, the elderly white male-dominated governments (state
and federal, around our country) try to impose invasive, costly and burdensome
measures on women who find themselves pregnant at a time in their lives when to
continue these pregnancies will cause undue hardship. I try hard to understand Republican thinking about this, but
I am at a loss as to how and why they think on this subject.

Another exception to the rule of “natural
selection’ is governmental support to farmers for growing and not growing
various crops. However, this
support is by and large limited to Republican-controlled states and fat cat farmers
who, even without such support, earn greater than $750,000 per year. For those Republicans whose major mantra
for the past umpteen years has been it is wrong to take taxpayer money and give
it to someone else, I found it extremely difficult to understand this giant
governmental giveaway to farmers, particularly when the incidence of fraud and corruption
in this program is so great. The total
money given to farmers, directly and indirectly, since 1995 approaches four
billion dollars!

These are the same guys who will spend 31 billion
dollars of our hard-earned money to hire additional federal employees
(shrinking the size of the federal government is part of their mantra) to stand
side-by-side guarding the Mexican-U.S. border.

Examples like these illustrate why I have so much
trouble understanding Republicans? Am I stupid or what?